Hive mind Beyond the veil

Looking around at the interior structure of the ship, he could only hope it would be the last time he ever had to see something like this. It reminded him too much of the inside of some massive, grotesque animal.

Veins of grey, pulsating flesh were barely hidden beneath what resembled calcified bone. At least that much comforted him, the organic horror was encased and restrained by the bone.

The hallways stretched outward like living arteries, winding and smooth, the walls covered in a seamless coating of bone-like material. Glowing nodules of some kind of organ or perhaps engineered glands dotted the ceiling, emitting a dull bioluminescent light that illuminated the hallways.

As he moved down the corridor, he passed through several membrane-thin doors that quivered slightly at his presence before relaxing open, allowing him to pass.

Eventually, he reached the heart of the ship—the command centre.

Trumek was already there, hunched over a thick resin tablet, scribbling in silence. Dozens more were stacked nearby, forming a wall of data, diagrams, or perhaps more thoughts of creating more living horrors.

His expression never changed, and his hands never paused, translating his thoughts to reality it was something like a habit.

Without a word, he walked past and stood before the wall of displays. Screens, projected from harvested satellite lenses and salvaged sensor cores, showed the space around Phaedra in fractured views.

Drones drifted through the debris field, they were slow and methodical, cutting apart the wreckage. Some debris couldn't be recovered, others were in much better shape.

"It seems you still find yourself mentally exhausted from being here," Trumek said, not looking up.

He sighed. "Anyone would be. I'm just tired of seeing everything moving, breathing, twitching around me."

"There is a solution."

"Yes, I've heard them all before. Steal or build my own ship, right?"

"Precisely," Trumek replied without irony. "Though, I still offer you access to the dreamscape. For your leisure."

"Maybe when I'm critically wounded or near death."

Trumek nodded, returning to his etchings. The sound of resin being scratched filled the chamber.

He looked back at the screen. A new class of drone had been deployed, it was a long, serpentine construct with countless eyes, arms, and tendrils. Each appendage housed a different tool, and they moved like surgeons dissecting a corpse.

They cleaned entire areas of the debris field within minutes. He'd asked once what happened to the material. Trumek explained that it was broken down and repurposed, used to reinforce hulls or to construct more drones. The process was sophisticated, built off principles he only half understood.

On the surface of Phaedra, thousands—maybe hundreds of thousands—of these things worked tirelessly. Collecting power cores, stripping irradiated armour, and breaking down the last of the war machines.

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After the final assault, there was little left worth saving. Radiation had made recovery impossible, but not for Trumek's forces. Their biology adapted to the worst of the affected areas.

"We'll be leaving for Imreth soon, Seer.," Trumek said.

He turned slightly, startled. He hadn't heard Trumek's approach. "Is that some kind of upgrade? You've never been this quiet."

"Something like that."

He nodded and returned to the screens. Silence settled again between them, not tense, but peculiar. Eventually, he broke it.

"How are my brothers?"

"All good. They seem to be enjoying themselves. Hunting, farming, crafting, and building."

"Wait—what?"

Trumek didn't look up. "My dreamscape is more advanced now. It mimics reality to a certain degree that makes those actions viable. They needed stimulation. I provided it."

"So it's a virtual realm?"

"In some ways, yes. They walk in the climate of Veridia, and experience the flora and fauna—before the war and radiation storms. They seem to find joy there."

"Tempting," he muttered. "But I like my mind functional."

Trumek shrugged, returning to his work. He always had these strange mannerisms, ones that reminded him too much of different species. It was strange, maybe it mimicked its creators.

With nothing else to do, he sat down, leaned back and simply stared into the void of space. The clean-up continued without him. His brothers, or what remained of them, drifted through the dreamscape, chasing illusions.

Some said Trumek was manipulating them—rewriting personalities, reshaping memories. He had seen examples of this, and it wasn't happening this time.

They altered acted like the originals, but something was always… off. If given enough time, even he might not notice the difference.

Eventually, he dozed off.

His dreams were always vivid. Always strange.

He dreamed of his birth—emerging from the vat alongside his brothers. The air had been cold, the lights too bright. He remembered everything. Every face around him was identical yet distinct.

The years of training, of combat, of endless simulations. They were prepared for every scenario.

Clone against clone.

Clone against the machine.

Clone against alien.

Then came the numerous jobs he remembered his first job was to hunt down a clan in deep debt, there was a lot of bloodshed that day.

Thereafter, it became more mundane jobs in mining, engineering, and construction. We were designed for war but became cheap labour, he found it sad how many of them had died from the work conditions.

He dreamed of loss. So many brothers. Faces that blurred into one another, yet each one had been different to him. The employers never saw that. But they were mistaken. Each had their quirks humour, silence, anger, and strangest of all hope.

His mind shifted again, flicking through more dreams like a projector skipping frames. Until it was reaching the end, of this expedition.

Clones against BCU. Then clones with BCU against other clones. Then BCU and clones together fighting machines and Clones. It was such a strange alliance that never made sense, but he was desperate to live.

He knew once you were marked rogue, you were always marked. There were no safe harbours for they marked.

Then came the final dream—the one that always returned, each time more vivid than the last.

He drifted through the void of space, weightless. His armour was shattered, gaping holes exposing him to the void of space. Life support was long gone, and his helmet floated nearby, it was cracked and spinning slowly.

Yet somehow, impossibly, he could breathe. That detail always disturbed him—the unnatural comfort of it, the lie embedded deep in the dream.

All around was quiet, eternal, and vast.

Then, it began.

The dark cracked open.

A fracture spread across the void like a wound splitting the cosmos. From it poured a harsh, blinding light, and with it came the flood.

At first, a few ships—then thousands—then tens of thousands. Soon, they surged by the millions. Then billions. Then, impossibly, trillions.

BCU vessels spilt from the rift like blood from a vein, an unending torrent of hunger and malice all pouring into reality.

He turned and followed their path.

And there it was.

The planet stood in the distance, blue and shimmering. He recognized it instantly. Its surface was almost entirely ocean, save for the glittering tiered cities rising like great spires from the depths.

Each tier was meticulously structured with opulence at the top and poverty at the base, a vertical caste system etched in steel and stone. It was a monument to the ideology of the Triumvirate.

The BCU ships descended like horrors cast from another dimension.

The planet's defences responded. Orbital platforms blinked to life, and a wall of light screamed into space. Lasers crisscrossed the blackness, piercing into the incoming flood. But it was like trying to halt the sea.

The first platforms vanished in a silent fire. The second wave fell seconds later. The BCU didn't slow.

They didn't need to.

From the depths of the planet's clouds, anti-air towers spat skyward. Hundreds more defence systems engaged. But the BCU armada never broke formation.

They simply swept downward in unrelenting waves, consuming everything in their path.

He could only watch, drifting silently, as the planet burned.

"Nice view," he murmured to no one, a bitter smile on his face.

And then he woke.

His eyes opened to the dim, fleshy light of the command centre. The hum of the ship pulsed around him like a distant heartbeat.

The dreams had only taken two hours, though it had felt like days. Time was always twisted when he dreamed.

But the memory remained. It stuck to him, like ash after fire.

He rubbed his face, trying to shake the lingering dread, then looked up at the closest screen. The silhouettes of Phaedra and Ivinal hung like ghosts in the distance, their shapes half-swallowed by static and light distortion.

He leaned back into the command chair, exhaling.

"Might as well return to my dreams."

And with that, he closed his eyes, unsure if the next dream would be better… or worse.